In a move that is quite head scratching from every perspective but Marvel’s own (Well and all the articles across the net spinning this) Marvel has announced today that they are dropping their “Buy a physical comic, get the digital version of said comic” plan. In it’s place they are offering “2 or more” digital comics with each physical comic. Yay right?
Sorry, they’re random back issues. (wut)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last several months (or year? Have they been pimping this for a year?) then you’ve certainly heard of Marvel’s big event book of the year, Secret War!

The brain child of Johnathan Hickman, this thing has been hinted at and teased for a long time. Basically, it’s this weird mash up of multiple (all) of Marvel’s universes, where they all fight it out in this strange new world that Earth has become, named Battleworld.

This giant cross-over event is said to not only shake up the status quo, but in fact Battleworld is the new status quo.

So with all the mish-mashing of Marvel universes from over the years together, this thing will probably be confusing, right? Never fear, true believer! Marvel has released a nice little ‘Reading Chronology” chart. Check it out:

Marvel’s “Convenient Road Map” (Click for full size)

Simple, right?

If you said, “But that’s pretty much every major event of the last 20 years!” you would be correct.

Anyway…since I have this blog to write (and much like Metal Gear Solid’s Grey Fox, I love pain), I have decided to go through every single item on this chart, read them, and write about them. Following that, I will move on to Secret Wars proper (That will probably be around 2020 or so, at my reading speed). The jury is still out about if I’ll tackle the Secret Wars tie-ins, because there are so fucking many of those.

Anyway, I am ready to begin my long road to ruin Secret Wars with …erm…Secret Wars!
…The 1984 one. They really shouldn’t have reused the name, it just confuses things.